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from Past and Present of Mahaska County, Iowa by Manoah Hedge The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. 1906
Interested in community affairs to the extent of active, hearty and helpful co-operation in many movements for the general good, Manoah Hedge is numbered among the valued citizens of Oskaloosa. The Hedge family is of English lineage and was established in Virginia at an early day. Aaron Hedge, the grandfather of our subject, became a pioneer school teacher of Ohio, and spent much of his active life in Guernsey county, that state. He was not only connected with the progress of the community, but did what he could for its moral development as an active and consistent member of the church. He died when about seventy years of age. His son, George M. Hedge, was born in Guernsey county, Ohio, and was there married to Miss Belinda Atkinson, also a representative of an old Virginian family. Her father, Robert Atkinson, was a farmer and spent most of his life in Ohio, being a pioneer settler in Guernsey county. Mr. and Mrs. George M. Hedge resided for twenty-six years in Coshocton county, Ohio, and in 1865 removed with their family to Eddyville, Iowa, where he engaged in the nursery business until 1872. He then removed to Oskaloosa, where he lived retired, having become somewhat of an invalid from a stroke of paralysis. He, however, owned a small fruit farm south of the city and confined his attention entirely to its supervision. He was a man of quiet and unpretentious habits; never wavered on public questions; and never intruded his opinions upon those who did not seek to know them. Majorities meant nothing to him in deciding what ground he should take. It is a pleasant memory to his family that his character and judgment were such as to cause him to be chosen several times as a peacemaker in an adjoining neighborhood where there were grevious differences to be settled. Both he and his wife were lifelong members of the Christian church. His death occurred in 1888, when he was seventy-two years of age, and his wife passed away in 1894, at the age of seventy- eight years. She was gifted as a sweet singer, and was dearly loved by her family and friends for her beautiful life. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Hedge were born eleven children, three of whom died in infancy. Five are yet living: Sarah, the wife of O. A. Mulvane, of Newman, Illinois; Manoah, the fifth in order of birth; Isabelle, the wife of Richard Charles, of Prairie City, Iowa; Oliver P., of Spring Creek township; and Violet, the wife of E. H. Calkins, of St. Louis, Missouri. Anderson, Aaron and Porter all served in the Civil war, and now sleep in soldiers' graves. Manoah Hedge was born in Coshocton county, Ohio, June 22, 1846. While in Eddyville, Iowa, he attended the high school and later became a student n Oskaloosa College. He was reared to farm life and began teaching in the winter of 1866 in Wapello county, Iowa, having charge of a district school with an enrolinient of seventy-six pupils. He continued teaching in the country schools for some years and in the meantime devoted much of his leisture hours to study. He became principal of the schools at Beacon, Mahaska county, in 1878, and was afterward principal of the schools at Prairie City, Iowa, for two years, and for the fourth ward schools of Oskaloosa for two years. In i886 he was elected county superintendent of schools in Mahaska county, filling the position for four years, or two terms. On retiring from the office of county superintendent in 1890, he became a partner in a book store in Oskaloosa under the firm name of Johnson & Hedge, which afterward became Hedge Brothers. He was associated in the conduct of this enterprise until 1902, when be sold out and turned his attention to the wall paper business, in which he has since continued. Not alone in business line has Mr. Hedge contributed to general prosperity and progress but has assisted in the development of the county along many lines beneficial to the people at large. He has for a number of years been president of the Mahaska County Sunday-School Association and was a member of the board of the State Sunday-School Association for several years. He has been active in temperance work and in temperance reform generally. During all these years he has been a student, continually broadening his knowledge by reacting, investigation and thought. Since 1856 he has been a member of the Christian church and for more than twenty years has been one of its elders. He was one of the original members of the board of the Young Men's Christian Association in Oskaloosa, and acted in that capacity until the elegant building for young men was completed. He has written more or less for local papers and educational journals and during the four years which he served as county superintendent edited an educational column in the Oskaloosa Weekly Herald. On the 21st of February, 1877, Mr. Hedge was united in marriage to Miss Laura Skaggs, of Chillicothe, Missouri, who died in September, 1892, at the age of forty-two years. Their children were: Violet, at home; Edna, who died in infancy; and Laura, the wife of Harry E. Cannon, of Fremont, Iowa. On the 19th of December, 1900. Mr. Hedge, was married to Anna Brolliar, a daughter of Lafayette Brolliar, of Richland, Iowa. They have one child, Hazel, now four years of age. Mr. Hedge has always had a most profound admiration for the pioneers of the west and the work which they did in reclaiming the wild region and developing it into a rich commonwealth supplied with all modern equipments and improvements. This interest led to his compilation of material which has gradually grown until he felt the importance of compiling an accurate work, setting forth the events beginning with the pioneer days of Mahaska county and covering a period of more than half a century down to the present year of progress. This material is to be found in systematized form within the covers of this volume and will remain as a permanent record not only for the present but for the future generations, its value increasing as the years go by.
Past and Present of Mahaska County, Iowa
Mahaska County, Iowa Genealogy